The present disclosure relates to a distributed dynamic virtual machine configuration system. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to assigning network configuration parameters to virtual network endpoints that are initializing.
Server virtualization technology enables hardware server consolidation and allows deployment of multiple Virtual Machines (VMs) on a single physical server. In addition, the ease of creation and movement of virtual machines enables a highly dynamic environment, which requires network support of frequent addition, removal and migration of network endpoints (virtual machines).
Most network environments today use a TCP/IP protocol suite that includes initial configuration of the host and its network environment being provided by host configuration protocols such as bootstrap protocol (BOOTP) or dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP). The host configuration protocols provide the hosts with network configuration parameters, such as IP address, default DNS service, default gateway and others. These protocols are based on broadcasting host configuration requests through the entire network. Such broadcasting requests in a virtual data center that includes a large number of dynamic end points may overload the network and limit the network capabilities.